Newsletter Issue #783: Just for Reading?

Posted By
Gene Steinberg
On
December 1, 2014 @ 12:00 AM
In
News |
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There are surveys and there are surveys. It’s very easy to take a little bit of highly-focused data and attempt to project how it impacts the entire product category. Before I get into the limitations of that data, once again most members of the media will quote such a survey without considering the limitations.

A notable example is a study that supposedly concludes that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are changing the equation when it comes to consuming media, well at least selecting material to view at a later time. The report comes from Pocket, who makes an iOS app that allows you to save such a reading list.

Now remember this study is strictly about saving articles and videos. It has nothing to do with customer preferences about reading or watching that material without saving for later, using apps, sending instant messages, and so on. It’s all about collecting online material for later viewing. Nothing wrong with that, but consider the narrow focus.

Now it’s important to realize that Apple already packs a Reading List feature into iOS, so you can capture the articles to which you want to return later. But Pocket’s advantage is that it saves that list online, so you can access them on any platform supported by the app. That gives you a huge advantage that you might prefer if you find the iOS Reading List limiting. All well and good.